mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

["David E. Miller" <address@hidden>]

Hi Andrey:

Thanks for your input. You are correct on all in all you have said below:

On 5/15/2013 4:27 AM, address@hidden wrote:
> On Wed, 15 May 2013, David E. Miller wrote:
> > I can't find a sympy plugin in either version in the distribution 
> > file tree as installed.
> It's a part of sympy.
                  -> I discovered this after looking at the sympy 
package on my system package manager which occurred after I sent the email.
> > Second, since this is a Python module, I would first try to use the 
> > existing Python plugin and fire up a Python session in a TeXmacs doc
> > and load your sympy module and see how the Python plugin handles the 
> > some stress tests you can try.
               -> The idea was to see if the sympy module itself when 
used with the existing Python plugin performed as expected with no
                   anomalies or errors. This experiment bypasses the 
sympy plugin altogether and uses the Python plugin which I know to work well
                   in general with the Python modules I have tried. 
However, as you note this alone is not sufficient to get the intended 
result.
                   If the sympy module does not work as expected in 
this case, then it may not be worth the trouble to try to use it as a basis
                   for a new sympy module in any case.

> This is by far not sufficient. sympy is a CAS, and the main reason to 
> use it inside TeXmacs is to get nicely typeset formulas. The python 
> plugin alone will not do this.
             -> True, but not all plugins achieve this result to the 
same degree. The plugins also provide a way to include the results of 
these various supported
                 programs into a TeXmacs document without having to 
spend a lot of time and effort cutting and pasting directly from the 
supported program
                 itself. Formatting of results to look nice and 
consistent with TeXmacs is always a plus. However, as I note, this is 
not always the case. Some plugins
                 return output verbatim such as the Shell plugin, which 
is by the way is now dead on my GNU/Linux package versions for some 
while now. Some
                plugins require the manual use of special functions to 
get nice or modified output such as Octave for example.

> What's needed is some hybrid of the current python plugin (distributed 
> with TeXmacs) and the current sympy plugin (distributed with sympy).

            -> This is probably the best course of action. However, 
given that sympy works as a loaded Python module using the existing 
TeXmacs Python module
                it might be the case that the solution s no more 
complicated than loading the module from the Python plugin code instead 
of from the
                [Python TeXmacs prompt and then merely adding some code 
using the functions of the sympy namespace to process the output returned
                to TeXmacs to get the desired effect. This modified 
Python plugin can then serve as a new sympy plugin if it is configured 
as a new plugin
                by the means TeXmacs requires.
> Andrey

As is often the case, two heads are better than one. Thanks for your 
input. I hope this helps Bill with his effort.

David